Scion

Ford continues to lead the OEM Manufacturers championship with strong performances from Vaughn Gittin Jr and Justin Pawlak, but the lead has narrowed behind a strong performance from Lexus. Scion dropped from second in the standings to fourth behind Aasbo’s Top 8 exit and Angelo’s top 16 finish, while Nissan moved into third with points coming from Chris Forsberg’s top 8 finish and both Briggs and Moen (both scored 64 points, both have chassis configurations that count towards the championship). Also of note, Dodge scored the first points in the championship behind Dean Kearney.

The LS movement just might be catching on everywhere around the world when it comes to drift car swaps. Max Orido after suffering the whole 2012 season with engine troubles and cutting out power with his Toyota V8 swap. Well now he has jumped into a nitrous powered LS7 to power him through the new year and was blown away at the torque on a test day we were reported. The LS7 is smaller and over 110 pounds lighter than its Lexus counterpart. With great companies throwing support to drifting like Scoggin Dickey and Canton Racing Products the growth of the LS community will only keep going!

We know tons of videos are going to be released over the next few days so this is an open media thread. Feel free to use our contact form to submit a video or drop one in the comments and we will keep this thread ongoing. The feature video above is a piece put together by Mark Lenardon and is one awesome compilation video highlighting all of the events from Round 1.

The first weekend of the Manufacturers Championship kicked off at Long Beach which is one of the two new championships replacing the Tires.com Triple Crown. To qualify as a manufacture your car must have an engine that matches manufactures with your chassis. This means someone like Dai Yoshihara doesn’t accumulate points but a motor swapped driver like Ryan Tuerck with his Scion FR-S will. Here is how the Top 5 look after Long Beach. Special thanks to Jacob Leveton for helping us with the calculation.

If you ever dreamed of partying with the Drift Alliance this Wednesday night is your chance at The Pike in Long Beach. The date is this Wed. on April 10th from 7pm until you pass out. All four DA stars will have their Formula Drift competition cars on site at The Pike as well giving you an early up close and personal look before Round 1! This will be one night to remember we can almost guarantee it!

Ryan Tuerck has taken out his 2JZ Scion FR-S for a test day at Pat’s Acres Racing Complex in Oregon. The 2JZ built by Portland Speed Industries (same company who built the 2012 championship motor) set out to give Ryan Tuerck what he calls “his best drift car yet.” With the help and support of new sponsors such as Enjuku Racing and Air Force his program looks like it has some serious potential. Can Ryan Tuerck finally make a serious championship run for the 2013 season? He has come close previously but a new attitude he seems to have along with this new build could put him over the top.

Papadakis Racing is one of those teams that is constantly looking to improve their car. While some believed that Aasbo would be moving to an FR-S this year, the team looks to be re-using the Scion tC2 that they have campaigned for the last two years for at least one more season, with a few major upgrades. The car will be the first Scion tC that the public sees outside of an autoshow with the new 2014 tC headlights, and will also feature a rear-mount radiator setup as well as a direct port Nitrous setup that will boost the already 700 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque under the hood. Aasbo really looked great all of last season, earning two podium finishes and four top-three qualifying efforts. In the flood of FR-S’s on the grid, this Scion may be the one to watch closest!

We got emailed this image showing off Ken Gushi’s Scion FR-S wrap coming together for the 2013 season. We pointed out that the car was sitting at Greddy all in black from the 2012 white it had. Hankook seems to have a bigger presence or moved placement for the 2013 season. Ken Gushi did an AMA on Reddit today and said he read Wrecked Magazine and loved me so we wish him the best of luck for the 2013 Formula Drift season. Greddy and Scion Racing had a full season to R&D the FR-S program and made some off-season changes to his chassis. What do you think about the new look of Ken’s Scion FR-S?

Tony Angelo went to R/T Tuning to hoon around in his Lexus missile for Hoonigan burnout Friday and we just caught wind to this video he released a few weeks earlier. Can anyone really top this burnout thrown down by Tony Angelo? In other Tony news his Scion FR-S is coming along just fine, here is where it stands now below.

The guys over at Greddy posted both of Ken Gushi’s Scion FRS vehicles sitting at Greddy HQ in Southern California. The red FRS is Ken Gushi’s street car now featuring a Greddy turbo kit! The black car is his 2012 Formula Drift car (that was white/blue) and has now been painted black for 2013. It looks like they have a new look cooking up for the new season.